Electrical appliances such as stereos, television, computers, video recorders, and similar home electronics, are vulnerable to being stolen from unprotected rooms, such as those in college dormitories, apartments, homes and offices. A number of inventions have been devised to deter theft, but they each have drawbacks, which are overcome by the present invention.
For instance, alarms have been devised that require the device to be mounted on or in the appliance. Such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,237,450 to Canez. Utilization of these devices, however, require some manual proclivity. Also, some appliances do not provide a convenient place to mount an alarm device, and some appliances are too small to make these devices practical. Moreover, mounting an alarm device to the appliance will disfigure it with mounting holes.
Other inventions, including the Canez invention, are also disadvantageous because they require the user to break into the electrical circuit of the appliance and alter the electrical connections of an appliance. Such a procedure requires some aptitude on the part of the user and can be unsafe. Other inventions, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,397 issued to Magil, are not secured to the appliance, and therefore, can be easily removed.
Another class of prior art alarm devices are intended for commercial use to prevent shoplifting. Such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,913,712 issued to Lee and U.S. Pat. No. 4,935,725 issued to Turnau. In general, these devices sound an alarm if the appliance is unplugged. A significant drawback of these devices, however, is that the alarm is at a fixed location within the store and not a part of the appliance, making them unsuitable for dormitories, apartments, or business offices where a thief can rapidly escape the sounding alarm.
There is thus a need for an alarm device that is compact, easy to install, does not disfigure the appliance or break into its electrical circuit, and can be used with any size appliance, yet can be connected to the appliance so as to remain with the appliance should a theft occur, thereby continuing to sound the alarm in emanation from the appliance to indicate the location of the thief and the stolen appliance as it is removed from the premises.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention is to provide a simple, efficient and compact device which alerts the owner of an electrical appliance of a pending theft.
Another object of the present invention is to ensure that the alarm device is easy to install without the rewirement of the appliance.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an alarm device that can be used with appliances of all sizes and configurations.
A still further objection of the present invention is to provide an alarm device that remains connected to the appliance in the event of theft and is not easily removable from the electrical appliance without triggering the alarm.